Down Goes Another One
by DarkElements10
Summary: It's time for McFly to go on another tour, but this time they have an even better idea, bringing their old friends back and forming McBusted. But they're not the only friends they bring along for the ride. Who knew this tour would be the most memorable, the most chaotic, and the most dramatic when the skeletons in McFly's closets dust themselves off?
1. Chapter 1

**Down Goes Another One**

**By: Riley**

**Full Summary – **It's time for McFly to go on another tour, but this time they have an even better idea, bringing their old friends back and forming McBusted. But they're not the only friends they bring along for the ride. Who knew this tour would be the most memorable, the most chaotic, and the most dramatic when the skeletons in McFly's closets dust themselves off? But theirs aren't the only skeletons they have to worry about. It's been said there's strength in numbers, but when secrets and lies are in play, it's only a matter of time before another one goes down.

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><p><strong>.:Chapter One:.<strong>

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><p>"Dougie, get the hell off me!"<p>

Tom Fletcher rolled his eyes as he turned away from the counter, holding onto a mug of coffee. Didn't any of them ever think about growing up at some point or another? He should have known it was bound to happen, even if they were in different countries to promote their album or latest tour, he had always become paranoid that at some point a pillow was going to come flying at his head when he least expected it.

And this time, as they boys were in his house, he was a bit more ticked off at their antics. Just last week he had to replace nearly every piece of furniture in his house because of Harry, Danny, and Dougie. Though he could admit that part of it was his fault, he _was _the one that had suggested the game of kickball in the house. But who knew it was going to end up with the boys tacking each other onto the couches, chairs, and tables that were scattered around the living room.

Okay, if he were smart he would've seen it coming a mile away. But there was always something about the four of them being together that managed to have him completely forget about the antics they constantly got themselves into. Especially when they didn't have anyone around to tell them 'no' or 'stop'.

_Fletch may have tried, but he should've given up after the second time, _Tom thought. He steeled himself for a sight that was bound to cause him to shake his head for the twenty millionth time since meeting the three boys, and went into the living room. What he found, however was something he had become so used to that even the fans had managed to pick up on it and make a joke out of it.

Harry Judd was—as always—doing pushups on the floor and Dougie Poynter was lying on his back, arms wrapped tightly around Harry and enjoying the ride. Danny Jones was sitting on the couch across from them, recording it on his phone. Tom tilted his head as he looked down at Harry, who had now collapsed onto the floor and was being bear hugged by Dougie.

"You do realize its things like this that make you guys nothing but internet fodder, right?" Tom brought the coffee mug to his lips and took a long sip.

"Trust me, I'm aware." Harry stood up and Dougie continued to hold onto him, now wrapping his long legs around the drummer's waist. "You know what we should do though? Patent this and make a Dougie backpack. He actually does a good job of adding weight when I'm trying to work out."

"Well, it's the only working out he'll ever do so…" Danny grinned as he lowered his phone to his lap and crossed his legs. Shifting his feet back as Tom walked by, he looked at his watch. "Shouldn't Fletch be here soon? I actually came on time for once."

"And it's only seconds away from the world exploding, thanks for reminding us, Dan," Tom said sarcastically.

Actually, he had been surprised that Dougie, Harry, _and _Danny had all managed to find themselves at his house on time. He was actually starting to become used to his constant nagging for Danny to get wherever was needed on time. So that Danny being the first one to arrive that morning Tom had to pinch himself to make sure he wasn't dreaming—though the noticeable lack of aliens was a big clue of that. The same aliens that had haunted him and his dreams for as long as he could remember. Even thinking of them at that moment caused him to let out an involuntary shudder as he remembered the nightmare from the night before.

It was a bit silly, he supposed. Continuously being so afraid of thing that weren't even real—though he would've liked to work at NASA to find out for sure, but there was something so sinister, so cold about them that constantly had him waking up in a cold sweat with a scream at his lips. It was those moments that made him happy he didn't have anyone that lived with him, but on the other hand it made him wish there _was _someone that was in bed next to him. To comfort him and to let him know everything was going to be okay. But if he told someone about that, about his nightmares, then he'd have to explain everything else and he wasn't ready for that. Other than the boys, he rarely allowed anyone to stay at his house for that reason alone.

He wasn't ready for the fallout that would come with it. No, he had to keep it quiet as long as he could. Until he thought it was the right time, even if it meant having to constantly revel in his sleepless nights and paranoid thoughts.

"Well, we'll know when Fletch gets here because he'll be talking a mile a minute when he comes through the door," Dougie remarked. He finally climbed down from Harry's back and straddled the ottoman that sat across from Tom and Danny. He started to pick at the buttons that were imprinted in the top of the leathery footstool. "Remember the last meeting we had? Couldn't get a word in and I _still_ don't know what he was telling us."

"Well, let's be honest here, Doug, you don't know what anyone is saying to you anyway, right?" Harry laughed and dropped onto the chair behind him, stretching out until his butt hung over the edge. He placed his hands on his stomach, gently shifting the chair back and forth with a twist of his waist. "You _still_ think that we travel through time every time you fall asleep on the bus and we get to the next city."

"I'm just saying there's no way we can get around to so many places so quickly. And time traveling should totally be a thing by now. It suck that we don't even have hover boards." He got up from the ottoman and jumped onto the couch next to Tom, jostling him. "Tom agrees with me, don't you Tom?"

But Tom, however, was too preoccupied with the coffee that had just slid out of his mug and splashed onto the white cushion underneath him. "Dougie! My couch!" He tilted his head back as he groaned. "Now I have to replace this one, too!"

"Don't be such a girl, Tom, all you have to do is clean the cushion," Danny pointed out. He turned to Harry and the two started to snicker. "Look at 'im, getting all worked up over a couch!"

"Dan—"

Tom was cut off by the ring of the doorbell and Danny quickly leapt off of the couch and raced towards the front door, lest the leader of McFly turned his wrath onto him rather than the youngest member of McFly. Grabbing onto the doorknob, Danny pulled the door open and stepped back, watching as their manager, Matthew 'Fletch' Fletcher, walked through the door, already having greeted Danny and getting right to business.

Danny followed after the manger back into the living room and watched blue eyes wide, as Fletch continued to spurt at the mouth about…something. He really wasn't sure what Fletch was saying, all of the words were jumbling together as he continued to rant on and on. All he got out of it were the words that always made Danny excited about being in a band; signing and tour. Meeting the fans and being able to perform were his favorite parts of being McFly. It was even better than writing, recording, and releasing songs, as the wait to see where they would chart or knowing what the fans thought was more nerve wracking than even performing in front of hundreds of thousands of people.

After exchanging a glance with Tom, Harry, and Dougie, whose expressions all made Danny realize that he wasn't alone in being confused, the front man cleared his throat to get Fletch's attention. "Right…Fletch…what are you going on about?"

Fletch glanced at the four men he had worked with ever since the band started and let out a heavy sigh that caused his body to bend forward in half. When he straightened himself, he had a large smile on his face. "How would you like to go back on tour?"

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><p><strong>AN: **My first chapters are always short. I'd been putting up a bunch of one-shots for this section for the past couple of years (since October 2013) and decided to finally write another full length story. As with the one-shots, our OCs; the Jacksons, and Gen and Jacqui will be main characters as well. I'll have the next chapter up soon.

Cheers,

-Riles


	2. Chapter 2

** .:Chapter Two:. **

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><p>Geneviève 'Gen' Charlier blew a gentle breath across the top of her steaming mug of tea as she curled up on the couch. Taking a quick sip, she allowed the warmth to wash over her before lowering the mug from her mouth and regarding the girl that paced back and forth in front of her. She followed the girl with her eyes for a few moments before speaking.<p>

"What are you looking for, Jacqui?" She asked.

"My scarf," Jacqui Guhl replied. She turned and zeroed in on Gen before jumping onto the couch next to her. "When I said I'd study abroad in London, everyone in my family told me that I needed to dress warmly. It gets pretty cold in New Jersey so I always use my long Harry Potter scarf that I can double up and I can't find it." She lifted a couch cushion and passed it over to Gen, who lifted it up as Jacqui started to look through the couch. "It's not here, but I found a lot of candy wrappers."

Gen leaned over and her eyes widened as she looked at the handful of wrappers from candy bars and lollipops were pulled out of the couch. "How could you manage to eat that much?"

"Remember that test that I studied for?"

"Right, I remember. That's the one that you had so many cups of coffee to stay awake so that you could get as much studying done as possible." Gen gave her a look as she handed the cushion back. Her lips curled against the rim of her mug. "Didn't you end up blacking out at some point?"

The question was rewarded with a heavy sigh as Jacqui closed her eyes against the memory. "Yes, I fell asleep on the train and had people staring at me when I woke up. Of course I didn't realize until later it was because my shirt was see-through." With a half smile she started to absentmindedly run her fingers through her hair. "Definitely gave those boys a show."

"Are you sure it wasn't because of your snoring?" Gen laughed to herself and quickly moved her mug away from her mouth as Jacqui whacked her on the arm. "Ha! Nice try." She looked at her watch. "After your class do you want to go into town and get some dinner? I can meet you if you get off at—"

"That's what she said," Jacqui interrupted, causing Gen to smile.

"Are you always going to do that?"

"You walked yourself into that one. That was not my fault."

"Anyway, if you get off at Leicester Square we can find a restaurant or a movie or something."

"Sounds good to me." Jacqui got off to the couch and started to look around for her scarf once more. Finally, with a cry of triumph, she found it behind the TV stand and quickly pulled it down over her neck, making sure to tie it just so. "I could go with some entertainment." She then pulled on a hat and started moved to leave the apartment. "I'll see you later."

"It's not that cold," Gen called, watching as she pulled on her large jacket.

"Excuse me, Frenchie, but not all of us come from a place that's completely covered in ice," Jacqui teased her friend. Gen raised an eyebrow. "You can try and convince us as much as you want, but we all know that you have winters, moose, and maple syrup and that's it."

Now Gen rolled her eyes. "Americans," she murmured with a playful twinkle in her eye.

"Canadians," Jacqui replied. She turned as there was a knock on the door to their apartment and she walked towards it. "You hear that, they're coming to deport you!"

"Sure, but I'm taking you down with me. Neither of us are English."

"I'm sure I can fake the accent enough," Jacqui said. She opened the door and blinked for a moment before tilting her head to the side. "Uh, aren't you supposed to be in Australia right now?"

Rhuben Jackson gave her an amused look, crossing her arms over her chest. "Would you rather we be there right now?"

"Uh, yeah," Jacqui replied. "It's warm. There are beaches everywhere and by now I'm sure that you now you know how to protect your babies from dingoes and to keep all of those poisonous snakes and spiders from getting into the house."

Riley Jackson, Rhuben's twin, gave a loud laugh before pulling her red strand of hair out of her face. "Just let us in, boofhead." She stepped forward and gave Jacqui a big hug before stepping aside and entering the apartment, going over to Gen, who stood up in surprise before giving her best friends hugs as well. Riley took the chance to look around the apartment. "Wow, you guys have a great place here. When you said you'd be studying abroad, Jac-Jac, I thought you'd be in one of those rundown places with no heat or something."

"Well, you know me, I would be able to survive off the many men that fell for my American charm," Jacqui said with an exaggerated hair flip. She dropped her backpack to the ground and jumped back onto the couch once more. "What are you doing here?"

"Uh, don't you have a class to go to?" Rhuben asked. She sat down in the leather armchair that sat next to the TV and pulled her legs up underneath her. "I assume that where you were going with your backpack that big. Then again, you could be stalking Tom Felton for all I know."

"Screw class, I can skip it."

"What _are _you doing here?" Gen asked. She then lightly slapped herself on the forehead. "Where are my manners, do you want something warm to drink? I know you don't like the cold." She gestured to the large sweatshirts and gloves the Australian girls were wearing. "I'll get you some hot chocolate."

"Don't stress, Gen, its fine," Riley said with a wave of her hand. "It's not like we're going to freeze to death anytime soon, yeah?" As if to prove herself wrong, she shivered and pulled her hands into the sleeves of her sweatshirt. "Hot chokkie would be fine."

Gen nodded and got up from her seat and went into the kitchen. She quickly made the two cups of hot chocolate for the girls before bringing them back out to the living room. She handed them over to her friends before sitting back down on the couch. Brushing her brown hair from her face, she regarded the Aussies. "How long has it been since we last saw you?"

"A couple of years, yeah?" She glanced over at Rhuben, who thought for a moment before nodding in agreement. "A couple, give or take. But we've been so busy, you know? So many press conferences and appearances, and studio work and the like."

"Speaking of, where are the boys?" Gen asked, speaking of their brothers, Patrick, Noah, and Sydney. "Didn't they come with you?"

"We just got in a couple hours ago and they wanted to get some sleep before we go to get something to eat," Rhuben explained. She sat up straight, placing her mug on the bookshelf next to her. "We don't even know why we're here, really. Fletch called Ronan and asked him to have us out here on the next available flight. Of course that made things a bit aggro when we tried to get the quickest flight, but…" she trailed off with a shrug.

Gen gave a gentle smile as she studied the two girls—of which she had gotten her nickname 'Gentle' from the Jackson siblings. Not only was it her personality to be a bit quieter than her three best friends that were more outgoing, but she had a way about her that was so calming. It made so that she was a good person to talk to when something was going wrong and to just give advice in general. And as Gen glanced around at her friends, she could see there was something that the two girls weren't saying. Which wasn't that far of a stretch. Not only did they have a tendency to be secretive, but who knew what had happened over the last four years with their work in their band. With constant flights around the world to play shows in so many countries that you could sleep in one and wake up in another, there was always something going on.

And with that much time away it meant there was an even greater chance of the friendships and relationships form before that were strained. Even some of her own had been strained after she had left their tour the last time. She remembered it fondly. Riley's and Rhuben's band, and McFly had been touring around Australia as McFly had worked on their album Radio:ACTIVE, and Jacqui and Gen had been invited along just because they were great friends with the band as well as being hired by the Jacksons to be their assistants while they were on tour. Having been reunited for the time being with their friends—and those they had past relationships with in McFly—Gen could understand why they might be a bit hesitant about seeing the boys again. She knew if Fletch had wanted them back in London, McFly was going to be involved in some way.

She had heard of the things that McFly had gone through over the past couple of years and expressed her support when needed, but knew it'd be a while before things were truly back to 'normal'. _Though with those boys, things are never truly normal, I suppose._ She had seen and been on the receiving end of McFly's antics so many times that it had come to be a fair bit of entertainment for her. It had given her a healthy sense of being able to deal with things that came her way, but nothing could ever prepare her for the things that McFly always seemed to get into. Which became even worse when they got the DarkElements involved as well. _It was all so much fun, _she remembered.

"Well, Jacqui and I were saying that we were going to go to Leicester Street for some dinner later today," Gen said, changing the subject. "And considering it doesn't seem like Jacqui is going to be going to class, why don't we all go and see the sights. We can get some food and catch up." She then paused, looking concerned. "What about Patrick, Noah, and Sydney though? Wouldn't they want to eat, too?"

"Yeah, but I don't mind eating twice," Riley said. "Fill me up, I'm good to go."

"That's what she said," Jacqui blurted before collapsing into hysterical laughter.

Riley's right eyebrow twitched upwards as her eyes flashed. "Huh, can you believe I forgot how annoying that is?"

"Aww, but you love me anyway." Jacqui batted her eyelashes, causing the girls to laugh as they got to their feet and bundled up before heading outside.

"Yes we do, Jacqui," Rhuben agreed. "Yes, we do."

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><p>James Bourne was confused as to why he had been invited by Fletch to go back to the Universal Records office. Not only had he been called in the middle of the night in New York, but because he hadn't heard Matthew 'Fletch' Fletcher that excited since he announced that one of the plays he had written was going to be performed on West End. Then as James listened to his manager—or former manger as the case was—babble along in his ear at a mile a minute, he barely manage to get out that the man was saying that something was going to be a good experience, that they couldn't pass it up, that it would be something revolutionary, and that he had to get out to London as soon as possible.<p>

That had been a few days before and while James had enjoyed himself meeting up with his friends and family he had left behind, he still didn't know why he was called back to London. After calling Fletch to tell him his flight had arrived, Fletch basically said to make himself at home and to wait until Fletch called him again.

Ok.

He could do that.

He still had his family he hadn't seen in a long time, his old friends. There was always someone around that he could hang out with, go to the pub, watching sports games on TV, go to each other's houses, write and record some songs with. The sky was the limit, but after the first few days went by with no word from Fletch, he was still confused. And that's what prompted him to call Matt Willis, whom he was surprised to hear had been called back to London as well.

"Really? You're here now?" James had asked.

"Yeah, I'm just 'round at my mates' place," Matt replied. Then he paused. "Why? Where are you?"

"I'm at my place," James said. He then started to smile. "Why don't you come 'round and we can see what Fletch has up his sleeve this time?"

"No worries, mate. I'll be right there."

And when James hung up the phone he couldn't help but think of all of the fun he and Matt had while they were still in their band, Busted. They had quickly soared to the top of the charts when their young band had started, along with Charlie Simpson, and he had enjoyed each and every part of it. The songwriting, performing the songs on the talk shows, the interviews, anything that would promote the music. (Though he wasn't too keen on the photo shoots, he always found it to be kind of awkward). But being able to do all of the performance, their two large concerts had been the best times of his life and when Busted ended because Charlie left the band he had been hesitated. He tried to do other projects that would take up the place of Busted, but there had been so much pressure.

When his first band had a single that didn't come close to where the Busted singles came on the chart, he had nothing but criticism put on him and that took the fun out of everything. Seeing that he needed time to get back into the passion of music, where no one knew his name, he jetted off to New York, where he started to write and record songs again, even if they were just for himself.

But when Matt came through the door of his house, the two immediately came together in a hug and were chattering a mile a minute, as if the last time they hadn't seen each other face to face was ages ago. Not only did they pick up right where they left off, but after a while of explaining what it was they had been doing since they last saw each other, but they started to reminisce about Busted as well.

"It's so strange to really understand, years later, that being in Busted was one of the best moments of my life," Matt said to James, leaning back on the couch, arms stretched across the top. James smiled and nodded in agreement as he looked at his friend. Though he still looked the same, Matt certainly had changed since they were young, especially his hair. James almost hadn't recognized the bassist at first because he had normal hair. There was no dye, no crazy colors, and no hair sticking out in all directions.

"I hope life without Busted hasn't turned you into an old fart," James remarked with a light laugh.

"You wish, pal," Matt remarked, laughing as well. "No, I mean, I've calmed down in a lot of ways. Some more than others, but I'm still the guy that's willing to try anything once."

Then the strange thought had come into James's head. Well, it wasn't exactly strange; he had thought about it a lot over the past couple of years, once after having a dream of it happening. Though, he was still a bit hesitant of mentioning it to Matt, what if he was laughed at or immediately shut down. "Do you ever think about starting it again? Busted, I mean?"

Matt regarded James with surprise, taking a moment to think before tentatively responding, "Mate, we said we would never do Busted again if it were just the two of us."

"I know but…I mean, don't you ever miss it?"

James had no idea how much Matt did miss the band. It wasn't until it ended that Matt realized he didn't want to do anything else in his life. The years that he had, in a way, wasted because he had gotten so much into the partying lifestyle while they had been experiencing it, was lost and fuzzy in his memory. Still, the things he did remember he wanted nothing more than to be able to go back and relive. Funny enough, he had been thinking about the band a lot, wanting to start it up again as well. But he knew there was a slim chance of it happening, especially if Charlie didn't want to go back, as the tallest member of Busted had said in no uncertain terms when he left the band to start a new venture.

"I miss it all the time," Matt said honestly. "It's what I've been thinking about a lot, lately, actually." He rubbed his nose before grinning, the skin by his mouth bunching up and almost hiding the mole situated right by his nose. "Wouldn't it be amazing if we were to do it again? It's the perfect time for us to do it, do you know how many movies and TV shows are doing reunions. I think we could do a reunion too. I get asked about it enough on Twitter."

"I reckon we might be too old for those jumps though," James remarked. As if to prove his point, he felt his legs cramping up and shifted so that he crossed them the other way at the ankle. "I would really need to get ready for that sort of thing."

"Right, like you don't practice it in your room," Matt teased. He then pointed towards his temple. "I can imagine you doing that, actually. In the off chance we did come back." There was a long moment of silence and the two looked at each other, the unanswered question hanging in the air between them. "_Do _you want to come back?"

Before James could answer, his phone rang and he leaned to the side to pull it out of the pocket of his baggy shorts. He turned the screen around so that Matt could see it was Fletch calling before James answered, putting the phone on speaker. "Yeah, Fletch? It's James."

"Hey James, how are you?" Fletch asked.

"Pretty good, Fletch. Um I've got Matt here with me as well," James said, glancing at his friend. "We heard that you asked for the two of us to be back in town and decided to meet up. Maybe to see if we could cop out what you were trying to do."

"Good, that makes this a lot easier for me to say rather than having to do it twice," Fletch said cheerfully. "How would you boys like to go on tour?"


	3. Chapter 3

**.:Chapter Three:.**

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><p>"Okay, shag, marry, kill…Smurfette, Mary Poppins, and…the Little Mermaid."<p>

Dougie giggled at the stunned expressions on Tom's, Harry's, and Danny's faces second before he got a roaring cry of hysterical laughter. Good. He was still funny.

Tom bent over, placing his head between his knees before leaning back up and wiping tears from his eyes. "Oh my God, what the hell is that?" He asked before bursting out into another round of laughter, after having caught Danny's eye, who was laughing so hard his laughter had turned silent.

"It's a simple question," Dougie replied calmly. "Who would you shag, marry, and kill?"

"Mate, _where_ did you come up with those options? You're supposed to use real people," Harry pointed out. He brought his hands up to his face and wiped the tears away from them and took a deep breath. He finally caught his breath before turning towards the youngest member of McFly. "Really?"

"The game is boring if you use real people," Dougie pointed out. "Especially if it's not the people that are sitting around you. So, I needed to spice up the game a little bit." He clapped his hands together. "C'mon, answer the question! Who would you shag, marry, or kill?"

"OK! OK!" Danny finally caught his breath and crossed his arms over his chest. He thought for a long moment, blue eyes moving up towards the ceiling as he thought. "Shag the Little Mermaid, Marry Mary Poppins, Kill Smurfette." As soon as he finished, he got nothing but another round of hysterical laughter. "What? It makes sense. The Little Mermaid would be adventurous, Mary Poppins would take care of me, and what are you going to do with someone that small?"

"I didn't need an explanation, mate, thanks," Tom interrupted. He finally stopped laughing long enough to finish wiping away the tears that slid down his cheeks. He fanned himself, rosy cheeks slowly moving back to its original color. He pointed over at Dougie. "I blame you for this."

"You didn't answer the question," Dougie pointed out.

"I'm not going to answer it, mate; I'm already slightly scarred from having to hear Danny's answer."

The boys continued to laugh and Dougie grinned as he leaned back in his seat, before starting to spin around in his office chair. It was the only thing that would keep his mind off of the headache that was seriously starting to pound away at his temples. No, he couldn't lie to himself. It wasn't a headache, it was a hangover. A hangover that seemed to never go away. The night before he had done nothing but sit in front of the TV and drink wine until he passed out on the couch.

Then having arrived at Tom's place that morning, he was afraid the other guys would notice that he was, in fact, hung-over, and ask him about it. That's why it was so easy for him to turn the attention off himself. That and he absolutely hated silences. Silence is what caused him to want to do something, anything to fill it. It was why he was known as the one that caused him to act out so much when the others were around. The silence is what caused all of those voices to come into his head and remind him of everything that he had tried to keep inside, the things he hadn't ever wanted to talk about before.

It was those moments when he was alone that caused all of the insecurity and the dark thoughts to come back. He had managed to numb them for so long after having started in McFly when he was just fifteen years old. That was when everything around him started to fall apart, he hadn't been accepted very well at school, his father had just left himself, his mother and his sister without warning, he had been turned down from the band the first time and things had quickly gone into a downward spiral for him. It was when he had officially joined McFly that he finally found something that would take his mind off of things.

But then when things started to go in cycles; where they would wait to see if their music was doing well, to see if they would be going on tour, their time off after having been on tour, all of that gave him too much time to become aware that he hadn't managed to talk about the things he had pushed aside for years. But then the cycle would start all over again; the band would start back up, he'd focus all of his time with his best friends and the music they were crating, the memories they were making, and do his best to keep up appearances. As time went on he found it didn't work as well as it used to, and he started to push people away from him at his worst, and continue act like they were his best friends at his best.

Still, there was something missing, something dull and aching deep inside him and it were those times where he found himself at the bottom of a beer bottle or a wine glass after a hard night, not sure how he managed to get there and how much he had drank. But it didn't matter; it wasn't as if he had a problem.

"So when is this meeting supposed to start?" He asked, changing the subject. He continued to spin around and around in his chair until he became dizzy and brought his feet up onto the legs that held the wheels of the chair. He stopped himself so quickly that he fell out of the chair and onto the office floor, to the sound of Tom's, Harry's, and Danny's laughter. "Whoa, talk about losing your balance." He lay on his back on the floor, waiting for his eyes to stop spinning around.

"Fletch said the meeting was going to start about a half hour ago," Tom said, looking at his watch. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the long, mahogany table in front of him. He rested his chin in his hands and looked around the empty conference room. "He's usually the one that's getting on us about being late to meetings and appearances and now he's the one that's late."

"I think we should see that as a sign," Harry remarked. "That it's the end of the world. So Dougie's question of shag, marry, and kill brings a lot more meaning to it now." He pulled a pair of drumsticks out of his back pocket and started to tap them against the side of the table in the beat that was their song _Star Girl_. He only stopped when the door to the conference room opened and Fletch, their UK manager, and Jake Hardin, their US manager, walked into the room. "Finally!"

"Sorry, we had some people that we needed to talk to before we got here," Fletch apologized. "In fact, they should be in here in a few minutes. And there are some others on the way." He looked at his watch. "But that doesn't mean that we can't get some of this done right now." He motioned for Jake to sit down before he did as well. "As I had said when I was at Tom's house, it's time for you lot to go on another tour. Not only has it been a while since you've done your last album, Above the Noise, which, let's just agree to say didn't go over as well as we had hoped, but because we want to be sure that your fans know that you're still working for them."

"And in that mean, I don't think you guys realize how long it's been since you started McFly," Jake added. "Not only that, but how long it's been since you broke America. It's been quite a while and you've only managed to go up from there. So we feel it's time for you to reflect that with a quick tour. An anniversary tour of sorts. You had a bunch of songs that you haven't had played live in a while, but these guys have been there for you just as long as you could remember and not only are they still going to be there if you take a break or whatever, but even if there was an album or something that happened that hasn't been as well received, there are those that are going to continue to be your fans."

Fletch then took up the explanation once more. "And there are the American fans that haven't been able to see you for such a long time and I'm afraid that we're going to be missing great opportunities for expansion if we don't get back there soon. So there are some places out there that we're hoping we'll be able to get attention from once this tour starts."

"An anniversary tour?" Dougie asked, sitting up in his seat. "Are we old enough for an anniversary tour? Isn't that supposed to happen when we're, like, old farts?"

"Well, you have to remember that your guys' band started a lot earlier than most bands start," Jake said. He leaned back in his seat, brushing his dark brown hair from his blue eyes. "Not only did you have your fist single when Dougie was fifteen, but most bands don't even start or get a record deal until they're about eighteen or nineteen, so you already had a big jump on them." He let out a startled cry as he leaned back in his chair so far that it tilted over and he fell flat onto his back on the ground. Fletch reached over to quickly help him up while the McFly boys continued to sit still.

After having seen how much trouble Jake had gotten into and how clumsy he could be—striking it up to simple bad luck—they rarely blinked an eye at everything he had managed to do. Though from what they had seen throughout their adventures touring in the US with Jake working as their active manager, they had seen a lot of things that would have been catastrophic accidents if he hadn't been prepared.

_I suppose that would bring for some good stories, _Dougie thought. He drummed his finger against his chest before starting to examine them. _When the hell did I get that hangnail? _He half listened to Fletch and Jake as he continued to examine his hands. Meetings bored him unless it was something really cool, like figuring out what the stage was going to be like, what lights they were going to be used, and figuring out what sort of appearances they were going to. Nothing was more fun to him than being able to hang out with friends with an open bar.

Anything that would get him to the point where he could finally feel something other than darkness and anxiety. He got into his head too often, too many times would he allow himself to wondering what his father was doing or what it was he could've done that would keep him around so the family wouldn't have fallen apart. He couldn't ever get the image of his mother out of his head, with the intense sadness reflecting in her eyes when he had arrived home and immediately noticed something was wrong.

Everything had been so silent, so still when he had walked through the front door of his house. Which was the strangest bit of all, considering his family was filled with his relatives. His young cousins played around in the front yard, his little sister, Jazzie, sat on the front steps, starting down at her feet. As he walked up the front drive, ruffling the air of his cousins as he went, his eyes focused on Jazzie. His beautiful little sister was crying, or had been crying, every now and then she sniffed and brought a hand up to wipe her eyes. Then he heard her whimper, the pitiful sound propelling himself forward faster than he thought he could go without breaking into a sprint.

"Jazzie, what's wrong?" He asked her. "Why are you crying?"

Jazzie lifted her head, brushing her long blonde hair from her face. Her bright, beautiful blue eyes were now tinged violet against the raging red that took over the whites of her eyes. The charming smile that was normally on her face, showing off the beauty that was bound to come as she continued to age, was gone, masked with a sad frown, trembling lower jaw. He could see she was seconds away from bursting out into tears once more and his presence wasn't helping.

"Hey, don't worry." Dougie reached out and placed his hands on the side of her head, then leaned in, giving her a kiss on top of her head. "Everything's going to be okay, Jazzie. I promise." He stepped around her and headed inside, calling for his mother as he went. "Mum? What's wrong with Jazzie?"

His footsteps automatically slowed as he traversed through the front of the house and towards the kitchen. He could hear hushed voices wafting towards him in ghostly whispers, chilling his spine as he went. Rounding the corner to the kitchen, he spotted his mother at the head of the kitchen table, face in her hands, shoulders suffering from their own earthquake as the rest of her body sat still. Dougie's blue-green eyes moved around the table where his aunts and uncles were sitting. They appeared just as upset as his mother, all speaking as quietly as she had.

"Mum?" Dougie entered the kitchen. "What's going on? Jazzie's crying…and what are they all doing here?"

His mother, Sam, lifted her head as soon as she had heard Dougie's voice and her face crumpled even further. She tried to speak to him, to explain what was going on, but a whimper similar to Jazzie's came out and she buried her face in her hands. One of his aunts was the one that had to pull him aside and deliver the most devastating news he had ever heard.

"It's your father, Dougie," She said to him. "He's….I'm sorry to tell you this, like you haven't been through enough already…"

Dougie blinked up at his aunt, waiting for her to continue. But he watched as she turned away in anger and clenched her fists together. They shook at her sides then she took in a deep breath and turned back towards the fifteen year old boy that continued to stand in front of her, curiously looking up at her.

"Is it my lizards?" He asked, speaking of the pets up in his room. He had bred them since he was little, making a lot of money off them at festivals and to whoever wanted a good pet. There were still some that he kept as pet of his own, his favorite being Zukie. If something had happened to him. "My snakes? Did one of them die?"

"I wish it were that easy, Dougie," his aunt continued. "I wish it were that easy." She took a deep breath and placed her hand on Dougie's shoulder. "It's your father. He's not dead, nothing happened to him, though I wish that little bugger would drop dead for doing something like this. For doing this to you all."

"What's he done?"

His Aunt then delivered the news. His father had packed up and left the house. No word of warning, no note. Nothing that would've let him or anyone else know there was something going on. All that was left of what had been their perfect house, what he had thought was a perfect family was a squashed lizard on the floor—probably struck on his father's way out without a second glance—being the only weapon that had been needed to completely shatter the illusion.

Now whenever Dougie thought about it, he would get sullen, not particularly very angry. He hadn't known how to deal with his anger when he was a growing up. He got beat up for getting angry at the kids at school that bullied him, he had been ridiculed, bullied, anything that would keep him quiet. So he stayed quiet and unassuming. Anything that would keep him out of harm's way.

He had done that as long as he needed to and still, he had been struck and hurt once more. This time by an action more than physically being hit but it hurt as much and continued to hold a lasting affect against him. He was quiet in interviews, only opened up when he was around people he could trust, drowned himself in things that would keep him from feeling it instead of talking about it. It had worked so far, what was keeping it from working now.

This time, however, he could distract himself with the new tour.

Thankfully.

"As I was saying,"—Fletch's voice brought Dougie back to attention and the bassist turned to see that Jake had finally pulled himself back up off the floor, but as now sitting in another chair—"We feel that this tour is what's going to bring you guys back into that mind space where you can forget what happened with the last album and start fresh. So we're going to do a _massive _show to let people know that McFly isn't going anywhere. We have some shows lined up in the venues and arenas you're familiar with, but we also have an even bigger space we think you're going to like."

"Oh yeah? What's that?" A grin graced Danny's features as he leaned forward. "The Manchester arena?"

Fletch paused. "Okay, yes, you're playing there. But that's not the big news. The big news is that Jake and I managed to score you a week of nights playing at the Royal Albert Hall."

"No way!" Tom's eyes widened as he sat up straight in his seat. "The Royal Albert Hall? Are you kidding?"

"No, I'm not kidding," Fletch insisted.

"The Royal Albert Hall is the best place for you guys to have all of the McFly fans come together to hear all of your music," Jake added. "And I mean all of your music. Not just what's been put out recently. We're talking things that have been played from Room on the Third Floor to Above the Noise, including Just My Luck. I have it on good authority that there are a lot of American fans that will come all the way to London just to see this. That week of shows will be the pinnacle of the tour. And it'll be all yours."

"What d'you mean by that?" Dougie leaned back, crossing his legs at the knee. "Does that mean that we're going to be able to actually own a piece of this place? Can I build a rollercoaster in here? I think that'd be sweet, especially coming out from the balconies up there. And it'd come with complementary barf bags."

"I don't think we have the authority for that." Fletch laughed along with the rest of the band, causing Dougie to beam. "But you have complete control over what the design, promotion, artwork; everything for this tour is going to be. It's going to be special and will definitely keep the fans you have now as well as bring in new ones once the news gets out. But there were some other things we want to get your opinion on as well."

Now Dougie was confused. He turned to face his best friends, who mimicked the same expression of confusion on their faces. They've had a lot of creative control on their shows before, but this was different. He could tell from the rapid-pace speech that was coming out of their manager's mouth—Fletch always spoke at top speed, but this was like warp-speed for the man, showcasing how excited he truly was. Even Jake had a clown-wide smile on his face.

This had to be something really important.

"We think that it'd be best if this show was all about you guys," Jake explained. "But that doesn't mean that you can't have some time for a break. And you don't want the audience to get distressed while they wait for you to come back on. So we were wondering what you thought about bringing some friends on tour with you guys to do some songs when you're not onstage." He turned to Fletch and nodded and Fletch got up from his seat and left the room, leaving the door cracked open.

"Which friends?" Tom asked. "One Direction? I think they'd be a great band to help us open it."

"Do you think that's a really great idea, though?" Harry finally stopped drumming his drumsticks and spun them around his fingers. "We've been trying so hard to keep our image from being a 'boyband' and having them open for us might not help those rumors."

"We have rumors that we're all gay and are hooking up with each other, mate," Danny pointed out. "I don't think there's anything we can do to keep that from constantly getting out there." He reached out and kicked the back of Dougie's chair, almost knocking him over. "Because this one is so touchy-feeling all the time."

"I'm not the only one!" Dougie quickly defended himself. "I happen to remember you and Tom sharing a bed many times before." As Harry laughed, Dougie stuck his tongue out at Danny, whose ever present smile widened. The boys turned back to the door of the conference room when they heard the rustling of clothes and saw it pushed back open as Fetch walked inside.

"So, what do you guys think of having these two on tour with you?" Fletch pushed the door to the room open wider and allowed James Bourne and Matt Willis to walk in behind them. "I already talked to them about it and they're already on board with the idea. We just need to know if you guys will want to bring them along as well."

"Mate, of course!" Tom immediately declared. "We wouldn't be McFly without James's help all those years ago."

"Yeah, if they hadn't had justifiably kicked Tom out of the band then we wouldn't be here," Harry added with an evil grin over to Tom, who rolled his eyes. Dougie stifled his giggle, wanting to get in on the jokes, but knowing there was only so far you could go with the jokes about Tom and Busted. It was always a bit of a sore subject.

_But nothing's more fun than taking the mickey out of him every chance we get, _Dougie thought, barely managing to keep his laughter inside. He cleared his throat and nodded over at Matt. "Dude, it'd be awesome if we had another bass player on tour. Now whenever I fuck up onstage I have someone that can cover for me."

"Oh, you mean like we do every night?" Danny shot back.

"But don't you think it's going to cause a lot of rumors to come around?" Tom pointed out as the two ex-Busted members sat down in the chairs that were left open across from them. "I mean, there have been people asking you about Busted getting back together for years."

"…We were talking about that recently, actually," Matt said slowly. "Of bringing the band back. We think it's the perfect time for Busted to get back together. We missed it a lot and nothing was greater than the time when we were in that band. What better way to try than…on tour with some of our best mates?"

"Thanks a lot," Tom said with a half smile.

Dougie smiled as James and Matt exchanged worried glances. There was a lot around the work of trying to bring Busted back that would be problematic. The fans…what if they were excited for it and then the excitement immediately wore off? What if they weren't the same Busted they had been before? What if it wasn't all the same? Not only that, but there was one other thing that they never talked about who was problematic for return of the band as well.

"What about Charlie?"

_Ding, ding, ding, there is it,_ Dougie thought, waiting for the two men to answer Harry's question. _The smelly fart in the room. The awkwardness of seeing someone naked coming out of the shower. The trauma of seeing your grandmother in an adult store. Everything you've never want to be brought up again and it's shoved right into your face._

James cleared his throat. "Ah, well, we don't know about that yet," he admitted. "We…we just want o see how things go. So there'll be some songs of mine that I'll perform, some songs of Matt's that he'll perform. Maybe all of us can do something together, but it's just a way to relive something. Because, like you said, you wouldn't be McFly without Busted."

"Actually, he said we wouldn't be McFly without kicking Tom _out _of Busted," Dougie reminded him. He let out a cry of pain as Tom leaned over and struck a hard punch to his shoulder. Leaning to the side, Dougie held onto his arm and rested his head on the table as he tried to catch his breath.

That gave him the perfect vantage point to see out the door and catch a glimpse of who was approaching before sitting up straight and shouting, "I'D RECOGNIZE THOSE LEGS ANYWHERE!"

Ronan McGuire gave the bassist a funny look as he walked into the room before glancing down at his jean covered legs. "I mean, I know they're good, but they're not _that _good," he remarked. This caused another round of raucous laughter as he was followed by five raven-haired young adults.

"You're not funny, Ronan," the youngest commented, rolling his blue eyes. A pair of dimples appeared in his cheeks as he smirked. "You may think you are, but you're not."

"Whoa! What are you doing here?" Harry practically shouted.

"I was just about to ask you the same thing, mate," Patrick Jackson replied, tilting his head to the side Noah, his twin, slapped a hand over his face and remarked, "they _live _here, dummy! Why wouldn't they be in London?"

"I meant here in this building at this point in time, boofhead," Patrick hot back, shoving Noah on the shoulder. Noah shoved him back and stuck his tongue out at his brother as the two moved to follow his brother and sisters to the last chairs around the table. He sat down across from James, suddenly noticing him for the first time and blinked rapidly. "What are _you_ doing here?"

"What are _you _doing here?" Matt shot back. "All of you? Aren't you supposed to be in Australia?"

"You see, there are these little things that have been created that us people on earth like to call planes, yeah?" Riley shot back. "And you see they're like little torpedoes with wings that have seats in them that people take to get around the world faster." She smiled playfully s her siblings laughed.

"To answer your question, Mattie, we caught one of the last flights last night," Rhuben explained. Then paused. "Or would it be this morning for you? I don't know, my brain is so jet lagged and we were just with Gen and Jacqui so…"

"Really?" Tom sat up straight in his seat. "How are they?"

"They're doing fine," Ronan interrupted. "But that's not the reason we're here right now." He cleared his throat and motioned to Jake and Fletch. "They called to let me know that there was space for you guys to perform on McFly's anniversary tour."

"Oh yeah?" James's eyebrows rose. "We're doing it too."

"Awesome!" Sydney declared. "Now all of us can play together again." He then paused as he frowned. "What about Charlie? I mean, if Busted is getting back together—"

"We're not getting back together," James interrupted with almost a snarl to this voice. A heavy silence fell over the room and Sydney chewed his lower lip as he lowered his head. "We don't know, anyway. This is just a thing where Matt and I are playing some of our old songs. Maybe some Busted stuff, who knows? But we wanted to be here for the guys' tour."

"So do we," Noah agreed. "Now that we know _why _we're here, yeah?" He shot Ronan a quick glance and the music producer/managed shrugged n response. "So are we finalizing the set up and everything or are we filling out a contract?"

"All of the above and more," Fletch said. "I can see good things, _big _things, coming out from all of this. But as it stands, we need to make sure that we have a lot of things set up, like tour stops, hotel reservations, press and promotion, money, hotels, bus rentals, gas money…" He scratched the back of his head. "It's going to be a lot of work but I think that we can all pull this off."

"Well, if that's the case, and the tour is going to start and end in London, that means we need a place for these guys to stay." Jake pointed at the Jacksons and Ronan. "And the hotels are too expensive to live in until we leave."

"I don't think a lot of the hotels around here are going to allow many bands to stay in them anyway," Dougie pointed out, twiddling his thumbs. "You know, because of the things that we managed to do. I don't think they want anymore televisions to be thrown out of hotel windows."

"It wasn't that far off the ground," Matt protested. "Personally, I think they were worried over nothing."

"You know what that means don't you?" Ronan asked, turning to his kids, who all shook their heads at him blankly. "It means that you're going to move into a house together again."

"If that's the case, remind me to make sure our insurance can cover it," Fletch remarked, running a hand over his face. "The last thing I need is to get a call saying that they managed to burn the entire house down…again."

"It wasn't the house, Fletch, it was the kitchen," Danny reminded him. "Remember. We forgot the lasagna that was in the oven."

"_You _forgot the lasagna in the oven, mate," Tom said. "The rest of us didn't want it."

"No. No. Remember? We were all hungry and…"

As Tom, Harry, Danny, Dougie, Riley, Rhuben, Patrick, Noah, and Sydney all argued over whoever's fault it was that the lasagna that had been conveniently forgotten turned to a burnt brick, Jake, Fletch, and Ronan all shook their heads, wondering if having them all together again was _really_ a good idea.


	4. Chapter 4

**.:Chapter Four:.**

* * *

><p>"Hey, has anyone seen my box of clothes?"<p>

Patrick leaned to the side and opened a box, peering inside. He frowned, closing it back up. "I know I have it somewhere around here. I packed up all of my winter stuff."

"You didn't _only _pack your winter clothes did you?" Jacqui asked, turning to the box that was sitting to her side. She opened it and started to go through them herself before standing up and glancing around the apartment. "I mean, I know you can be slow sometimes, but I don't think you'd do that considering how much you complain about the cold."

"You're not going to let us live that down, are you?" Noah asked, from the other side of the apartment. He swiped his hair from his face and turned to Gen as she finished pulling a large strip of duct tape over the top of a box. "Thanks for letting us leave our stuff here before we took it to the house."

"You're very welcome," Gen replied with a smile. She reached out and ruffled Sydney's hair as he walked past her, balancing two boxes in his hands as he went. "It must be really exciting that you guys are going to be working with McFly again. But this time with James and Matt as well! I'm excited for you."

"Yeah, well, you're not the one that's living with them again," Rhuben commented, sitting on the floor as she finished packing a suitcase. "I swear, if I have to clean up after them as much as I did last time, someone's gonna pay."

Gen laughed and bit off the end of the tape before going over to another box and starting to tape it up as well. Sitting on the floor, she held the box between her knees and started to pull off a long strip of tape. Placing it on one end of the box, she smoothed it over the top and taped it to the other side. Once finished, she set the tape aside and crossed her arms, resting them on top of the box and then placing her chin on it as well. A light sigh escaped her lips as she looked around the floor of the apartment.

Soon she was going to help the Jackson get all of their stuff together before going with them to help move into the house they would be sharing with the McFly and Busted boys. Not only was it a good idea as they would all be working together to get ready for their tour; it was a good way to keep expenses down rather than have them all in hotels, it'd keep their morale up rather than them all being separated in their own homes…there were a lot of reasons as to why it was a good idea and she could agree with them all.

However, she had a particularly selfish, and somewhat clichéd, reason to be hesitant to help her friends move. Simply because she hadn't seen Tom in a long time and wasn't sure what would happen. Their breakup really hadn't been a breakup either, they just…drifted apart. They had too much going on in their lives and the constant distance didn't help. Plus, she had never been _completely _happy with all of the fans that were constantly around him. She didn't know anyone that would be so secure in that aspect of dating a musician, dating someone that had managed to get into such a huge band at such a young age had its own set of problems but the pressure from the media around became worse and worse as time went on.

So going back to Canada to finish her schooling, then going into university before getting the opportunity to live in London for a while had given her a great sense of perspective of the two of them. Not only had she realized by that point that their communication had fallen few and far between, but that they weren't the same people. Tom must've felt the same way for he seemed to pull away on his end as time went on.

_And now you have to see him for hours while you help your friends move in, _Gen thought a second before a t-shirt landed on her head. She picked up the yellow and white garment before casting it aside with a cry of, "Patrick! Watch where you're throwing your things."

"I see you've managed to find your summer clothes," Riley said with a laugh. She held up her hands, shielding her face as Patrick continued to blow through his clothes, tossing them aside. "What are you looking for now, bro?"

"I can't find my wallet," he said.

A collective groan went through the room, causing the bassist to give a sheepish smile before going back to work.

* * *

><p>"Oy, Tom? Who gets this room?" Danny leaned against the balcony and yelled down into the foyer. He laughed as Tom, who had been standing directly beneath him, jumped and slapped his hands over his ears. The blue-eyed guitarist's laughter echoed along the walls of the empty home. "Mate, you should've seen the look on your face!"<p>

"Danny," Tom snapped back. "Please use your inside voice."

"I don't know the meaning of such words."

"You don't know the meaning of _many _words."

Danny laughed again and quickly walked down the remainder of the three flights of stairs. When he reached the bottom, he clapped his hand on Tom's shoulder and gently shook him. "You have to lighten up, mate. We're supposed to be having fun, remember?" He then dropped his hand and crossed his arms. "And I was asking about the bedroom up on the left at the _very_ top of the stairs."

"That's for Riley and Rhuben," Tom explained. "It's one of the bigger ones and considering they actually _like _to get up early I figured it'd be better so that we didn't have to worry about the noise.' He eyed his blue-eyed best friend as he let out an evil laugh and started to rub his hands together. "You're not going to do something stupid are you?"

"Mate, you just answered your own question," Harry said. He came into the house behind them, carefully rolling a suitcase behind him. The sound of the wheels squeaking along the floor caused the other two young men to clasp their hands over their ears. "_Everything _Danny does is stupid, remember? This is the guy that thinks that green beans are actually beans."

Danny shrugged his smile unfading as Tom and Harry laughed together. Dougie came up behind them and walked by, carrying a large tank with two lizards scrambling over each other inside. James and Matt came up behind them carrying their own bags. He couldn't believe this was all happening already. It was only two months ago when they had first started talking about touring together, only two months since they had gone over the contracts and had started a tentative schedule for their appearances and promotions before going off on tour.

And it was all he wanted.

Writing and making music was fun, sure, but touring was the best part. Being able to play music on stage, for people, with his best friends was the most fun he's ever had. It was what he looked forward to every year. But this was different; not only were they touring with the DarkElements again, a band they had grown very close to when they had been touring the US when breaking the American market as well as touring Australia to work on and promote their RADIO:Active album. But now they were doing the next best thing with the best timing in the world. Fans had been asking about it for years, for McFly and Busted to make music together. And now that the possibility was coming back, he couldn't wait to see the looks on the fans' faces when they saw that the two would be performing with them on that tour.

Now if only he could keep a secret long enough.

"Dude, this place is awesome!" Matt declared, dropping his bag to the ground. Placing his hands on his hips, he gave an appreciative look around the foyer. "It's even better than the Busted house. It's even better than _my _house."

"Mate, everything is better than your house, considering your house is a dump," James joked. Matt shoved him hard not he shoulder, knocking him into the wall beside him, creating a small dent with his shoulder. Tom's eyes widened as he went over to inspect the damage.

"Guys, we've only been here for twenty minutes and you're already breaking stuff," he declared. Sighing, he whipped out his phone and took a picture of the wall before sliding it back in his pocket. "If we make sure that the damage we put in here isn't that bad, so we don't have to worry about the security deposit."

"And once again, I'm telling you to lighten up."

Danny looked over at Dougie, who suddenly gasped loudly, his eye widening as he placed the lizard cage on the ground and peeked out into the living room. He then came back to the foyer, his eyes shining with the familiar look of mischief that the McFly boys had grown accustomed to. "Let's play hide and seek!"

"Hide and seek?" James's nose wrinkled. "Why hide and seek?"

"Every time we go into a new house or something we inevitably end up pla9ing something, one time we had a massive water war, the next time we built forts and played capture the flag. This place is _perfect _for hide and seek."

"Okay then." Harry stepped forward and slapped Dougie on the arm as hard as he could. "YOU'RE IT!" He took off up the stairs as James and Matt immediately turned towards the living room and disappeared around the corner.

Dougie brought his hands up to his face, covering his eyes, and started to count loudly. "One…two…three…four…" Sensing Tom and Danny still standing by him, Dougie spread open his fingers and peeked out at them. "Guys, c'mon, this isn't how you play."

"I'm not going to play unless Tom plays," Danny said. He gave Dougie a pointed look saying, _help me convince him to play_, which Dougie quickly caught on to. Nothing was more fun than messing with Tom, other than when he got in on the jokes as well.

"We have too much work to do," Tom insisted. Though judging by the tone of his voice, Danny could tell that the 'leader' of McFly was already starting to break his resolve. "We have to get the rest of the bedding and stuff in and then we need to go grocery shopping and go over the house rules."

_House rules, of course. Tom can't go more than a few hours without having to have at least some sort of rule. _The only time Danny didn't see the boy so serious was when it was the night of a show or when they had some time off. Then he was bouncing around and acting as silly and goofy as the rest of the boys were. Either that or when he wasn't playing with the massive collection of Disney paraphernalia that he had someone managed to accumulate over the years. Then Tom was the exciting Tom, the one that laughed the hardest and loudest compared to the others.

But then, he had also noticed there would be a time where Tom was the most irritable. He would seem to draw in on himself and Danny found himself arguing with him more often than usual. The two of them being the guitarists in the band made it so they spent the most time together; especially in the means of writing songs, working out the melodies, and recording. More often than not when it came time to record, Tom and Danny were in the studio longer and more often than Dougie and Harry—who recorded the bass and drums separately, as Danny worked lead guitar and sometimes doubled up on rhythm for recording while Tom worked mostly on rhythm guitar.

Even now, glancing at Tom, Danny was afraid that Tom was going back to that point. But this was supposed to be fun; they couldn't worry about things like that now. They were only just starting and he didn't want it to end before it began.

"C'mon Tom, you can count with Dougie and try and find us," Danny pressured. "That way you can make sure that Dougie doesn't get into anything. You know how much of a klutz he is."

"Good. Let's go, Tom!" Dougie grabbed onto Tom's wrist and started to drag him towards the stairs despite not having finished his counting yet. Once they were out of the room, Danny took the opportunity to slide into the hall closet, carefully leaving the door cracked as it had been when they arrived.

Danny continued to hide in the closet, listening as Dougie raced back and forth along the house screaming at the top of his lungs, the sound of thudding feet and falling furniture accompanying it. Every now and then he could her Tom's protests for Dougie to keep everything clean, seconds before another crashing sound was heard. He had started to wonder how long he was going to have to hide in the closet before someone tried to find him. Seconds later, he heard footsteps in the foyer and braced himself for a minute before jumping out with a scream, attempting to scare Dougie.

Instead, he leapt out in front of Sydney, who yelped in surprise before turning and launching himself on top of Noah's head, scrambling to stay up as the

"Way to go, Danny, you scared a little boy, yeah?" Riley commented, watching as her brother continued to hold his vice-grip atop of Noah's head, the drummer trying in vain to coax him down. "What are you doing, anyway?"

"Isn't it obvious, sis?" Rhuben motioned towards Danny before crossing her arms as she flashed a toothy smile. "He's coming out of the closet. It makes a lot of sense, yeah?"

"Oh c'mon, love, you know you're the only one for me," Danny said. He walked over and put his arm around her shoulders, hugging her to his side. "My offer for a destination wedding still stands, if you're interested."

"Pass." Rhuben reached up a hand and pushed Danny's head away from her until he was an arm's length away. "For one, I'm too young to get married, and two, it's not the right time of year for a destination wedding. Not unless you want a hurricane to blow through."

"I don't know, I think that'd make things kind of exciting," Jacqui pointed out as she came into the house after them, Gen by her side. "It'd bring a whole new meaning to the term 'blown away'." She wiggled her eyebrows, causing the others to laugh. All of a sudden there was the sound of rapid footsteps coming down the stairs and Dougie jumped over the last few steps, landing on the ground behind them with a loud slam.

Gen and Jacqui screamed and whirled around to face the bass player, who reached out and slapped Danny on the back. "I FOUND YOU! You're it next, Danny!"

"Dougie? What'd you do? Who screamed?" Tom came flying around the corner of the banister and stopped short, tightening his grip on the railing; nearly falling over once he spotted Gen. He quickly composed himself before giving a quick smile. "Gen…hi."

"Hi, Tom," Gen replied with a small smile. "How are you?"

"I'm doing well, thank you." Tom took a few steps down the stairs, still looking at her. "And you?"

"Fine, thanks."

"And I'm doing fine, too," Jacqui added, breaking Tom out of his trance. "I know you didn't ask, but I thought I'd let you know." She waved to her blond friend before turning to Dougie. "Playing a game of hide and seek, I see?"

"Yes, ma'am." Dougie puffed out his chest with pride. "And I was the first one it and I found everyone! And Danny was last so it's his turn."

"Where are James and Matt?" Sydney asked, finally getting off of Noah's head. He crossed his arms over his chest as he looked around. "Aren't they supposed to be here, too?"

"Dougie tied them to the legs of the bed in the master bedroom," Tom explained with a light roll of his eyes. "He found our exercise jump ropes and wanted to make sure they didn't get away. I think they're still there, actually."

"I say leave em'," Dougie piped up.

"Clearly you lot still haven't matured over the years," Riley remarked. She rubbed her forehead. "I'll untie them from the bed, you guys start bringing in the rest of the stuff." She then grabbed onto Dougie by the shirt collar as he tried to creep away. "You're not getting away that easily."

"Geez, Riles, why am I not surprised that you know how to untie Dougie's knots," Patrick said with an inappropriate grin, causing Danny to cackle and the red loving sister to reach out and whack him on the back of the head.

Dougie smiled as he was pulled up the stairs behind the raven haired girl. "She's really into the kinky stuff." He cried out in pain as Riley reached over and grabbed onto his nipple, twisting it as hard as she could. "Ow! See?"

"This is a great place you guys," Jacqui said as she took in the foyer. "Much better than the last one." She tapped her jaw with her index finger. "But I think it looks too new." Her eyes then landed on the dent in the wall and nodded. "Never mind, they already broke it in."

"I bet that didn't last long," Gen laughed quietly. She flicked her hair out of her face before turning to Tom. "Would I be correct in assuming that it was Harry and Dougie that did this?"

"Matt and James, actually," Tom corrected her. He cleared his throat before scratching the back of his neck. "Did you guys come to help them move in?"

"Yeah, you know they can be just as rambunctious as you are." She reached out and poked Patrick in the back. "Especially this one. He had us looking for his wallet for a half hour before remembering it was in his back pocket."

"I didn't feel it, so sue me!" Patrick rolled his eyes. "Geez, you make one bloody mistake and the next thing you know you're branded for life." He rubbed his hands together as he stepped into the foyer and looked out towards the living room, dining room, and kitchen. "Wow, Ronan really went all out this time." He turned back to Tom. "Which rooms are ours?"

"The ones that haven't already been torn apart," Tom replied, pointing over his shoulder. "Go ahead." He was cut off as the rest of the band came back down the stairs all but Dougie appearing irritated, as Dougie grinned.

"I win!" He declared.

"Hey," James greeted the Jacksons, Gen, and Jacqui. "You finally got here."

"Barely," Rhuben said.

Danny waved his hands impatiently. "Yes, yes, we're all here. And now that we are, let's order some pizza and have a good time. House warming party and all that. The first night in a new place is supposed to be fun." He placed his hands on his chest. "Now, it's my turn to be the person to seek…" he smiled flirtatiously as Rhuben. "Do you want to be my partner?"

"I'd rather stay hidden," she replied.

"Okay, but you'll be the first one I go after," Danny warned her.

"Shocker," Harry remarked. He then turned to Jacqui and grinned. If he felt as nervous as Tom did about seeing Gen, he didn't show it. Then again, Harry had always been known as the one that had the most confidence out of all of the boys. If he was nervous, he usually deflected from it with a witty joke or by changing the subject. If not going to some other means that was to attract his attention. "Do you want to play too?"

Similarly for Harry, if Jacqui felt awkward being around Harry after the way _their _relationship had ended, she didn't show it. Instead, she smiled and patted him on the chest saying, "if I can hide with you, of course."

"Danny's it!" Dougie declared, charging towards the basement. "Everybody hide."

As the others moved off to get into their hiding places, the phone started to ring. Harry, who was the closest to it, glanced at the Caller ID and frowned before picking it up. He didn't recognize the number. "Hello? Yes, he's here. May I ask who is calling?" Danny, who had started to go to the living room to start counting, turning back towards Harry, noticing the sudden silence that surrounded him. And as he watched, Harry's shoulders tensed, moving up towards his ears as his back muscles tense beneath his thin t-shirt. "Oh…okay, well, you can ask him. He's right here…" Harry trailed off as he turned and held the phone out. "Danny, it's for you."

"Really?" Danny's eyebrows rose in confusion before he smiled, ambling over to his friend. "Who is it?" He pulled the phone out of Harry's grasp and started to put it up to his ear.

"Your father."

At that, Danny quickly jerked the phone away and slammed it back on the cradle. It was the first time in a long time that Danny Jones didn't have a smile on his face.


	5. Chapter 5

**.:Chapter Five:.**

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><p>Harry leapt out of bed, and promptly stubbed the front of his foot on a box that was sitting on the floor. Cursing loudly, he jumped up and down, holding onto the front of his foot as he waited for the pain to subside. In the bed on the other side of the room, Dougie flipped around and cracked open an eye, watching the drummer bounce around.<p>

The blond lifted a hand and brushed his mess of hair off his forehead before running his fingers over the stubble that appeared through his beard. "Dude, I know you won Strictly, but you don't like to dance. Stop trying."

"I'm not dancing," Harry ground out through gritted teeth. He lowered his foot to the floor and turned back to his best friend. "I just stubbed my toe on this stupid box by the bed." He placed his foot on top of the box and with a hard shove, moved it towards Dougie. "What's in this thing anyway?"

"It's my habitats for my lizards." Dougie yawned and buried himself into his blankets.

"And where are the lizards?"

"Where do you think?"

"Dougie!"

"They're in the bathroom. Don't worry; I made a really good habitat for them while we were having our massive pillow fight." Now a smarmy smile slid onto Dougie's face, though only the crinkling of his eyes were visible above the line of his blanket that covered him. "You didn't think I'd want to harm my babies do you?"

"Considering it's probably the only way that you'll actually have children…" Harry laughed and turned, jumping on top of his friend. He grabbed onto the front of Dougie's shirt and started to shake him. "Get up. Now get up. We have to get a workout in."

"Are you kidding?"

"No, I'm not."

"We just got here, we're not even fucking unpacked yet and the first thing you want to do is go work-out?" Dougie buried further underneath his blankets, grabbing handfuls and pulling it down around him. "You're mental, man. Completely mental. I'm not going anywhere, I'm going to sleep."

"Dougie!" Harry tried to pull the blankets off of the bed, but Dougie held them in a steel grip. "Dougie, get up."

"Go away, I'm sleeping!"

"Dougs."

Dougie loudly made the sounds of snoring and rolled onto his side. Rolling his eyes, Harry reached out and underneath the blankets. Groping around, laughing when Dougie let out a shriek and then said, "I don't know what you were looking for but it's clearly not that," Harry grabbed onto Dougie's ankle and pulled hard, pulling him out of the bed. "Okay, you weirdo. I'm up. You can now subject me to whatever torture you have on your sick little mind." He leaned back and held his arms out, tilting his head back so that his hair dusted the floor. "Take me!"

Harry then took a step back, a light laugh escaping his lips. "You know, I think I liked you better when you were shy and quiet. Get your shoes on." He went over to the dresser and quickly pulled on a pair of work-out shorts over his boxer and grabbed onto his shoes. "And I'm not tying them for you." He slipped out of the room, holding his shoes in his hand.

Creeping down the hall, he listened into Tom's and Danny's room to be sure they were asleep before bringing up the shoes and batting them against the door and darting inside. "C'mon, wake up!" He clapped the bottoms of the shoes together as he marched in a circle. "C'mon, c'mon. We have to get started. We're not going to be ready for tour if we're not ready to go on stage."

"Okay, I'm up," Tom mumbled, lying on his back, an arm over his face.

"Yeah," Danny agreed. He sat up, his short hair sticking up all over the place. "We're ready. Let's go." He blinked at the drummer then fell back onto his bed, pulling a pillow down underneath his head. Unlike Dougie, Harry knew that Tom and Danny truly were able to get up within the first few minutes that they were awakened and were quick to get the day started whenever hard work had to be done for the tour. He knew that Dougie was going to be need to be awakened once more before he was really able to get started.

Moving through the rest of the house was pretty easy, James and Matt were pretty easy to awaken, and the Jacksons, as Harry remembered, were usually the first ones up. Though this time, he knew was due to the sudden change in time zones and their scheduling that caused jet lag to have them up early. It was funny, though, to see the night before where they had fallen asleep, while hiding, in the middle of the house wide pillow fight. Moving everything into the house and jet lag must've hit them harder than they expected, especially if Sydney was able to get comfortable enough to fall asleep in an empty wine cabinet.

"Hey, Harry," the youngest band member greeted. He walked into the gym room with a bright smile on his face. "You seem to be up early. Always have to get in that first workout, yeah?" Dimples appearing in his cheeks.

"You know me, I take my workouts very seriously," Harry agreed. He leaned forward, lowering his voice. "And because it's funny to see how much the other guys hate me whenever I put them through the first day." Sydney grinned and raised his hand, and Harry gave him a high-five.

Within the next few minutes, the rest of the Jacksons were outside with Jams, Matt, Tom, Danny, and Dougie following behind them. "I didn't know there was such a thing as seven in the morning," Matt mumbled, squinting one eye against the sun. "Usually when it existed I would already be asleep. Or hungover."

"How long has it been since your last drink, mate?" Riley asked, twisting her body back and forth, cracking her back. "I can't imagine that it's the easiest thing in the world to get through."

Matt shrugged, bobbing his head back and forth. "The hardest thing is trying to restrain yourself when you're in a scenario when there's so much of it around you." He licked his lips. "And to answer your first question I've been sober for almost five years now."

"Congrats, mate," Noah said with a warm smile. "We're proud of you."

"Thanks."

Harry nodded and rubbed his hands together as the rest of the group went to the backyard, Tom dragging Dougie by the wrist as the bassist seemed trying to reach back for the house, making audible sounds of annoyance as he went. "If we're going to work out this early in the morning, Dougie, then you are, too," Rhuben called over to him, rubbing her eyes.

"Yeah, but you guys are all used to it," Dougie complained, crossing his arms. "You're from Australia, where everything is backwards. Early in the morning is probably late at night for you. The water in the toilets spin the wrong way, it's not natural."

The three bands laughed at Dougie's outburst and Harry pressed his palms together as he looked over the group in front of him. Some were in better shape than others, he knew that. But that was also subjective as being in shape meant something different to everyone else. And, of course, he couldn't go straight ahead and throw them into a certain routine, but he did have to get a good idea of what was going to help or hurt them.

Patrick seemed to have noticed his plight for he spoke up after a minute of watching Harry. "Why don't we test to see how we are with our physicality in general? Run for a few minutes; see how long it takes for us to tire out, yeah? Maybe lift some weights, get an idea of how many reps we can get in."

"For Rhu it'll be nothing," Sydney piped up, motioning over to his drummer sister. "Her upper body strength still tanks."

"I can help you with that, love," Danny offered. He made a show of lifting his arms, flexing his muscles. "My guns speak volumes."

"Mm, they look more like water pistols to me," Riley remarked, reaching out and squeezing her hand around his bicep. Her eyes then widened as she got a good look at the tattoos that lined up his arm, the last time she had seen him he only had tattoos on his legs. "Whoa," she remarked. "Nice artwork." She then paused. "Is it weird that I'm strangely attracted to you because you have a sleeve?"

"Well, you're the only one that I dated, might as well give it a shot," Danny replied. Then he paused, his eyes narrowing as he leaned closer to her, studying her face. "Unless you're Rhuben trying to trick me into thinking you're your sister just so you could have a good laugh."

Riley frowned, dropping Danny's arm. "And now it's gone."

"Way to go, Dan," Tom said with a half smile of amusement. "You just ruined a chance at every man's fantasy."

"I didn't need to know that," Sydney remarked.

"Are you really that surprised?" James asked with a snort, ignoring Sydney's comment. "He can hardly tell either of them apart even if one of them completely dyed their hair."

Harry smiled and cleared his throat. "Okay, so what we're going to do is, Patrick and I are going to see where we are when it comes to our fitness in general. And then we can come up with some sort of a workout that we can all follow, to make sure we're in top shape for our shows. Does that sound good?" His friends all nodded and he explained that half of the group was going to start off on the treadmills while the other half would be working on lifting weights and then the groups would switch after about a half hour.

Harry lifted himself up onto a treadmill and started up the machine. He moved it up towards a high speed and let out a deep breath before regulating his breathing as he ran along the belt that raced by under his feet. Lifting his gaze, he focused his attention on the mirror that sat not he room across from him. He had to stay focused, had to make sure everything was perfectly in place for the band to continue to go higher and higher as it could. In that case, he had to better himself.

For everything in his life, Harry attacked it with a 'can do' attitude. Yes, it made people around him think that he had some sort of a superiority complex, that he felt he was better than everyone else, that he didn't need anyone else to make things in life work. He had it said to him so many times where, at first, he was incredibly surprised by it, actually being someone that found himself alone more than anyone would assume. Nearly every school he had gone to, people had seemed to take that sort of stance with him and he became used to having to entertain himself while others would make up rumors about him and excuses to not hang out. That's truly how he had gotten into drumming. After having had taken some classes with band in percussion, he got his own crappy drum kit and started to play along to the music he enjoyed. Did he ever think it would take him to being one of the biggest bands in the UK and becoming friends with some of the best people he had ever met?

No, not in a million years.

Did he think it'd bring him to some of the best experiences he's ever had in his life? No, he never thought he would be on Strictly Come Dancing or do anything of the sort, dancing wasn't his favorite activity to do other than something that had him working competitively. And he managed to win that. There were so many things brought his way that he couldn't imagine ever getting the chance later and yet…he still wasn't as happy.

Nearly every day, no matter what exciting things came his way, there was always a moment where he felt that he wasn't happy, that there was something missing. Maybe it was the adrenaline in him, he was always trying to chase the next high, the next thing that would give him the same sort of adventure and rush that he so craved. It was probably the same reason why he liked to work out so much; it gave him the sense that there was always something for him to improve upon.

There was always more weight he could lift, more push-ups he could do, more sit-ups, he could hold a longer plank, hold a longer handstand, hold a longer squat, run a faster mile, run at a consistent pace longer. And despite all of that he knew that elated feeling was long lasting and the only thing that would make him feel better in the long run was the bottom of that bottle.

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><p><strong>AN: **I planned for this chapter to be longer and less of a filler, but with things that have greatly put mei n a bad mood today, it's kind of short. But it has set up the plots for each of the McFly boys, so there's that. Next chapter, things will move a lot faster.

Cheers,

-Riles


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